In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind
there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and
pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and
knowledge.

Igor Stravinsky

Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the
end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is
the only one that is apt to be repeated.

B. C. Forbes

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes
when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well
-- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise.

Larry Wall

You have played enough; you have eaten and drunk enough. Now it is
time for you to depart.

Horace (65 - 8 BC)Epistles

... but we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who
played games themselves. However, grown-up games are known as 'business' and
even though boys' games are much the same, they are punished for them by their
elders. No one pities either the boys or the men, though surely we deserve
pity, for I cannot believe that a good judge would approve of the beatings I
received as a boy on the ground that my games delayed my progress in studying
subjects which would enable me to play a less creditable game later in life.

Saint Augustine (AD 354 - 430) in his Confessions - Book I:10

Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative
man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

Ayn Rand, The Moratorium on Brains

That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how
we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from
it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious
way, is winning.

Richard Bach, note written by Richard Bach,
The Bridge Across Forever

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the
winning.